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The Linux Homefront Project reports on Lennart Poettering looking to do away with the good old "su" command. From the article, "With this pull request systemd now support a su command functional and can create privileged sessions, that are fully isolated from the original session. Su is a classic UNIX command and used more than 30 years. Why su is bad? Lennart Poettering says:"
Well, there have been long discussions about this, but the problem is that what su is supposed to do is very unclear. On one hand it’s supposed to open a new session and change a number of execution context parameters (uid, gid, env, …), and on the other it’s supposed to inherit a lot concepts from the originating session (tty, cgroup, audit, …). Since this is so weakly defined it’s a really weird mix&match of old and new paramters. To keep this somewhat managable we decided to only switch the absolute minimum over, and that excludes XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, specifically because XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is actually bound to the session/audit runtime and those we do not transition. Instead we simply unset it.
Long story short: su is really a broken concept. It will given you kind of a shell, and it’s fine to use it for that, but it’s not a full login, and shouldn’t be mistaken for one.
I'm guessing that Devuan won't be getting rid of "su."
(Score: 3, Troll) by Nerdfest on Monday August 31 2015, @06:44PM
Unfortunately, if you're a Linux user you're too late for the most part. A huge chunk of the distros now use systemd. I'm just hoping we get a little use of the bootless updates in the 4.x kernel before systemd fucks everything up and required reboots for patches. It's still beyond me how we got into this mess. This can't be incompetence, it *has* to be malice.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Zz9zZ on Monday August 31 2015, @08:03PM
I too lean towards the idea of malice, but I think that leaning is more a result of paranoia brought on by the secrets that have come to light over the last few decades. Now that we know how far some have gone to undermine our security and privacy with proprietary systems, it almost seems like a given that there would be a push to get compromised software into all linux boxes.
However, barring proof we can't make absolute statements. The big hurdle I run into when discussing this issue is that systemd is open source. It basically boils down to: "I trust the experts, and its open source so go find the bad code if you're so sure systemd is bad." Which ignores the multiple VALID issues with systemd architecture.
Even if there is no inherent flaw with systemd, it is entirely possible that another piece of software could have bugs that propagate through the new system that has its fingers in everything.
Back to my original point: it is not necessarily bad intentions at work, it could easily be the cultural arrogance and cliquishness that is permeating the West Coast tech scene. Once the possibility to fork is taken from the community, freedom is gone.
After a quick search on types of authoritarianism to see which type this falls under, I felt this one resonated pretty well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism [wikipedia.org]
You either drink the kool-aid or you're, in the modern parlance, a troll because the debate has been "settled". The comparison amuses me since right wing authoritarianism is typically the opposite of what you'd expect from this crowd, and the last thing the various committees (that have pushed this stuff through) would think of themselves. Trust the experts, trust the open source...
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2015, @08:06PM
Lennart and most of the other systemd developers are actually from Germany. I guess the west coast texh scene reaches further than I thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @12:19AM
Hush, you. He's built up a nice little consistent hero fantasy story in his head. Let's not go messing it up with things like facts.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday September 01 2015, @12:25AM
A good point! I am definitely not experienced with developers across the globe, maybe its a generational tech trend and not geographic at all. Perhaps it is a natural progression as programming languages evolved. Abstract the lower levels and the next group of devs have a different outlook on architecture. Or it is as simple as the architectural choice of Windows vs. Linux, and nowadays developers prefer the streamlined windows method vs. the configurable linux method.
Opinionated Prose: One tool to link them all, and in the system's darkness bind them!
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @09:40AM
I think you are onto something there. Although I would probably replace "Windows" with "IOS".
Not that the difference is that big anymore. Since Windows 8, Microsoft has also been chasing the "you'll do what we say, and you will like it" point of view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 02 2015, @08:36PM
I do believe Germany also has a coastline. Although its coast is in the North of the country, there will certainly be a western part of that coastline. I don't know if there is a tech scene there though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @03:33PM
Code is logic, and logic is a road, not a destination. If you start from A but think you start from B, you are unlikely to reach C continuing forward.
(Score: 1) by utoddl on Tuesday September 01 2015, @01:26PM
The other alternative is that you're wrong.